This is my quest to use Woman's Day magazine as a guide to living a better life, month to month, by incorporating as many of the articles, recipes, and advertising into my life as possible. My goal is to grow as a person, discover more about myself and others, and test my limits, boundaries, and abilities.

Friday, August 1, 2014

Beef Rainbows and Corn

Woman's Day Magazine is terrific for recipes but let me tell you--they are almost always telling you to go get some sort of beef cut that no one ever has. I've even gone to my local butcher and they don't have what I need (this is usually when I'm asking for flank steak). Super markets have plenty of rib-eye and T-bones but ask for a flank steak or skirt steak and you know what you'll get from the Kroger staff? Crickets. They don't have a clue either. So listen, I'm going to help you out here. This is what a skirt steak looks like and this is what Wikipedia says about it:

Skirt steak--a beefsteak cut from a diaphragm muscle.

Was that helpful? Not really? Yeah, me neither. So for this recipe I simply bought thin steaks and told myself I tried because I totally did.

So I opened my meat and pondered this nugget of question: why does some meat have that iridescent sheen?

Beef rainbows--that's what The Atlantic called them. I could go on a tangent about how this sounds like an assortment of things from a 1960's album to something PETA created but I won't. I'll just get to the answer:

"Speaking of ham, beef is not the only meat known to have rainbows. However, when cooked beef is sharply sliced against the grain of the muscle fiber, this, coupled with the moisture in the beef, creates an excellent surface for producing rainbows."

So there you go. Not spoiled.

Also, I'm not sure what makes some jalapeno peppers more powerful than others, but my fingers burned for hours after preparing this recipe so you might want to invest in disposable gloves and use them when peppers are involved.

The "Tips and Techniques" section of the recipe suggested one could make tacos and that's exactly what I did.

While you're driving around town, stop at your local produce vendors and pick up the basics. That's what I did too. It just makes the meal taste better--it just does.